by Nancy Krulik
“Oh, we’ve never met,” the woman assured her. “But I’m a huge fan of your designs. I’m Lauren Madison. I know it’s not right to talk business at these events, but I’m actually a buyer for Bergman Taylor and I’d like to talk to you about setting up a small boutique for your designs in our store.” She slipped Sami her business card. “I suppose you’ve had oodles of offers, but I think there’s a certain cachet to selling exclusively with us.”
“Well, I could never do that. Sell exclusively, I mean. I’ve been working at Beneath the Sheets and—”
“Oh, that charming little downtown place,” Lauren said. “I’ve heard of it. Anyway, I’d love to chat with you about doing something with Bergman’s. Do give me a call, won’t you?”
Lauren turned and walked off, refusing to give Sami a chance to say no. Sami was standing there, stunned, looking at the card in her hand, when Franklin walked up, drink in hand. “Thank you,” Sami said, taking the iced tea from him. “You wouldn’t believe what just happened. A buyer from Bergman Taylor just approached me!”
“What’s not to believe?” Franklin asked. “I told you, baby, we’re on the rise.” He held out his glass. “To us,” he toasted.
“To us,” Sami agreed, clinking glasses. “Boy, am I thirsty.” She took a huge sip of the iced tea and then placed the glass down on a nearby table.
“Let’s dance,” Franklin suggested, taking her around the waist and pulling her out onto the floor.
Franklin wasn’t a practiced dancer, and his movements weren’t always easy for Sami to follow. Still, she felt confident, even buoyant, as she danced in his arms. His own overwhelming self-confidence was obviously contagious. She smiled brightly into Franklin’s eyes. He smiled back at her—just in time for their grins to be captured by one of the paparazzi.
“It’s getting hot in here,” she said as they walked off the dance floor when the band took their break.
“How about another iced tea?” Franklin suggested.
“Perfect,” Sami replied.
“You sit down. I’ll be right back with the drinks.”
Sami sank into the plush chair that had been set up near the glass wall overlooking Central Park. As she watched the people around her chat and laugh, she suddenly felt like an outsider; an impostor who didn’t really belong. A roving photographer, walking toward her with his camera in hand, apparently didn’t agree.
Franklin spotted the photographer focusing his attention on Sami. Within seconds, he was by her side, handing her a tall glass of iced tea.
“How about a picture, Ms. Granger?” the photographer asked.
Sami looked up at him, surprised. “You want a picture of me?”
“Of course he does, honey,” Franklin said, leaning down and draping his arm around her. He looked up at the photographer. “I keep telling her she’s a star. But she’s so modest.”
The photographer snapped the picture. “Hi, Franklin,” he said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Well, I’m strictly doing fashion work and covers now, Jake,” Franklin answered. “All by appointment. I’ll leave the paparazzi work to you. It’s too cutthroat for my taste.”
“You used to be part of the paparazzi?” Sami asked him, surprised. She’d only known him as a fashion photographer.
“Now he’s apparently on the other side of the velvet rope,” Jake said.
“The view’s better from here,” Franklin assured him.
Jake turned his attention to Sami. “Nice meeting you, Ms. Granger. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”
“I hope so,” Sami replied.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” Franklin said soothingly after Jake walked away. “I tried to run over and shoo him away, but …”
Sami shook her head. “It was fine.” She took a sip of her tea.
“Say, I just heard someone say that Lil’ Liya just arrived. She’s talking to a few friends in the main hall. Want to stop over and say hello?” Franklin suggested.
“You know her?” Sami asked incredulously. Franklin didn’t seem the type to hang out with rap singers.
“We’ve traveled in similar circles,” he replied, avoiding a direct answer. He took her by the hand. “Come on, the band’s still on break, anyway.”
Sami followed Franklin’s lead. But before they could even move ten feet, a broad-shouldered young man with sandy blond hair made his way across the floor toward them. “Sami!” he called in his familiar deep voice.
“Bruce Jamison,” Sami growled angrily.
Franklin tried to move Sami out of Bruce’s path, but it was no use. Bruce was determined to speak to her. And as Sami had learned the hard way, Bruce Jamison usually got what he wanted.
“I just wanted to say congratulations,” Bruce greeted her. “I’ve been seeing your name everywhere.”
“Well, I haven’t seen yours anywhere,” Sami hissed.
“I’ve been working on a few new ideas, but nothing’s set in stone yet,” Bruce replied easily.
“You mean you haven’t stolen anyone else’s ideas yet,” Sami replied loudly.
Bruce looked around nervously. “Oh, can’t we put the past behind us?” he asked. “You’ve had your successes, I’ve had mine—”
“We’ve both certainly had success with my work,” Sami corrected him.
“Well, we do have similar styles,” Bruce said quickly. “That’s why I was thinking that maybe you and I should get together and brainstorm a bit. Maybe collaborate on a line?”
Suddenly all the resentment Sami had buried deep in her subconscious bubbled furiously back to the surface. A flood of pure adrenaline surged through her body. “Collaborate on this!” she shouted as she pulled back her fist and slammed Bruce right in the mouth.
He went flying backward, and landed with a thud on the ground. “You knocked my tooth out!” He grabbed his mouth and shrieked with pain.
Sami didn’t say a word. She simply turned and left the room.
Franklin had offered to accompany Sami back to her apartment, but she’d begged off. Sami had heard a distinct lack of sincerity in his voice. It was obvious he wanted to stay, and she had to agree that there was no reason for Franklin to leave the party so early. She could handle herself just fine without him. Sami Granger didn’t need anyone.
As the driver made his way downtown toward Sami’s apartment, she quietly prayed that Rain was already asleep. She didn’t really feel like talking at the moment. She just wanted to crawl into bed. The evening had been a disaster. The only good thing about it was that it was over. At least nothing else horribly embarrassing could happen to her tonight.
Or could it?
As Sami climbed the stairs to her apartment, she heard the sound of men’s laughter ringing through the hallway. It seemed to be coming from Vin’s apartment. The first voice she recognized belonged to her brother, Al.
“You should’ve seen little Sami holding this huge bouquet of weeds,” he was saying. “She was so proud—until we told her they were poison ivy. Oh, man! That kid was covered in calamine lotion for days. I can’t believe she never told you that story. It’s a family classic.”
“She’s probably gotten too citified to tell a tale like that one,” Sami heard her dad say. “It’s not dignified enough.”
Sami stood in the hallway outside Vin’s apartment, listening to the three men laugh together. They sounded warm and comfortable as they spoke in voices slightly slurred by one too many beers. It reminded Sami of nights in her father’s coffee shop—after hours, when Mac and his friends would sit around and tell their tall tales until late.
“She’s had some pretty undignified moments here, too,” Vin informed him gleefully. “You know that big wooden column in her bathroom? I built that a few days ago. There’s a heating pole underneath. Sami backed into it getting out of the shower. Burned her good. She couldn’t sit down for three days!” The men laughed again.
Sami winced, remembering that accident from the early days of th
e fall, when the heat first went on in the apartment. Who leaves heating poles exposed like that? “Okay, that’s enough,” she announced, bursting into the apartment. “What’s this? Bust on Sami night?”
Vin stood and walked over to her. “They’re just telling me what you were like as a kid. Sounds like you were pretty adorable. I wish I could’ve seen some of those snow people with olive necklaces and mophead wigs you built.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” Mac laughed. “How ‘bout the time you climbed the big tree in the yard trying to rescue your cat Smoky?” He turned to Vin. “Sami got all the way to the top branch—higher than the house, even,” he boasted. “Smoky took one look at her and ran down to the ground!”
“Unfortunately, Sami was too afraid to climb down after her!” Al guffawed. “We had to call the fire department. They brought a ladder to get her down!”
“Now there’s a story for Page Six,” Vin teased. “’What up-and-coming fashion diva got her start climbing the ladder of success chasing a cat?’”
Sami scowled at him, but she wasn’t really angry. Actually, after the evening she’d just had she needed a couple of good laughs, like the kind she and Celia used to share during their all-night talks. “Where’s Celia?” she asked.
“She was kinda tired, so she went back to the hotel and went to bed,” Al explained. “But Vin invited us up here for a few beers. And then Rain suggested we come in and see where the great Sami Granger hangs her hat these days. Nice to see you still don’t make your bed.” The men all laughed again.
“So you’re all sitting here talking about me without Celia to defend me?”
Mac looked at his daughter in her expensive evening gown, carefully styled updo, and dramatic makeup. “Are you so sure she would?” he asked her pointedly.
Sami sighed. He sounded just like he had in Elk Lake. His tone knocked her back to reality. So much for the warm memories of life in Elk Lake. Now she remembered why she’d left in the first place—for the same reasons she was anxious to get out of Vin’s apartment now. “I’ve got to get to bed,” she told them. “I have two appointments in the morning.”
“I thought you were spending tomorrow with us,” Al said.
“I am,” Sami assured him. “It’s just two appointments. I’ll meet you guys at the hotel around noon.”
“Maybe we’d better meetcha in the lobby, Sam,” Al teased. “We’re on the fifteenth floor. You can get up there, but we might have to call the fire department to getcha down!”
The men collapsed into a fit of mutual laughter as Sami left the apartment, slamming the door behind her.
Nineteen
Sami stumbled into Beneath the Sheets the next morning feeling extremely grumpy. She had a horrible headache from lack of sleep—what was I thinking drinking all that caffeine at night? She was in no mood for any questions. She just wanted to finish up a few designs, turn them over to the two seamstresses she and Lola had recently hired, and go home to clean up before having to drag her family to every tourist site in the Guide to New York.
The bells ringing above the doorway echoed through her head as she walked into the shop. She mumbled angrily to herself as she rubbed her aching brow.
“Sounds like you had quite a night,” Lola said from behind her copy of the New York Courier.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Sami moaned.
“Try me,” Lola said, leaning forward with a playful grin. “I hear you pack quite a punch.” She turned the paper around so Sami could see the headline on Page Six.
FASHION WORLD’S ICE PRINCESS ON FIRE!
Below the headline was a huge picture of Sami slugging Bruce Jamison, with a surprised—but perfectly coiffed—Franklin by her side. It was accompanied by a small article.
Lingerie design darlin’ Sami Granger caused quite a stir last night at the benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s costume collection. Amid rumors and accusations that fallen star designer Bruce Jamison had stolen her designs for his last, great collection, Sami Granger gave Jamison a little bit of the down-home justice she learned in her hometown of Elk Lake. Seems Jesse Ventura’s not the only champion fighter from Minnesota.
“Oh, no!” Sami exclaimed. “This is awful!”
“What?” Lola said. “It was time that scum got what was coming to him.”
“Did you read this?” Sami asked. “It makes me seem like some country bumpkin from Mayberry or something.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lola said, laughing. “Don’t you watch reruns on TV? Mayberry was in the South. This article very plainly states that you’re an ice princess from Minnesota.”
Sami shot her a look.
“All right, if you can’t see the good in all this, it’s not my problem,” Lola said, and shrugged.
“‘Good? What good could possibly come of this?”
“Just the end of Bruce Jamison’s short-lived and unearned career success,” Lola suggested.
Sami jumped slightly as the phone rang. “Why is that thing turned up so loud?” she moaned, clutching her head.
Nico answered the phone. “Beneath the Sheets. How may I help you?” she asked. Then she pumped her hand triumphantly in the air.
“It’s about time she got that right,” Lola whispered to Sami. “Folks were beginning to think we ran some other kind of business out of this place.”
“It’s for you,” Nico said, holding out the phone. “Vin.”
Sami took the phone from Nico. “Hello?”
“Hey, slugger!” he greeted her.
“Very funny,” she moaned.
“I think it’s amazing,” Vin said. “I wish I’d been there to see you do that! How come you didn’t tell us last night about your triumph?”
“I think you heard enough tales of Country Sami last night,” she replied curtly. “I didn’t need to add any reports of my ‘down-home justice’ to the pot.”
Vin laughed. “Oh, come on. I’ll bet it felt great to deck that jerk!”
Sami couldn’t deny it, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of agreeing, either.
“Okay, the real reason I called was to warn you,” Vin said finally. “I think I may have given your brother and your father the address of Beneath the Sheets.”
Sami gasped. “You think?” she demanded.
“It’s hard to tell. We talked about a lot of things, so I might have inadvertently told them the block and the cross street.”
“Oh Vin, you didn’t. They’re going to come here, I know it!”
“So what?”
Sami looked toward the door. A woman with tattoos running up and down her arms and a bright blue Mohawk had just entered the store. She walked right over to a selection of garter belts and began to examine them. “So what?” she demanded. “So what? You’ve met my dad—he’s going to have a fit when he sees this place.”
“I repeat, so what?” Vin asked. “You’re a grown-up. Start acting like one. Stop hiding and sneaking off into the night like a kid. Confront your father. Tell him you’re still his daughter, but the terms of the relationship have changed.”
“Easy for you to say,” Sami replied. “You never moved any farther than across the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“You think my mother was overjoyed when I dropped out of college and went into a carpentry apprenticeship? She wanted me to be an accountant.”
“Oh no, not you!” Sami exclaimed. She had a hard time imagining Vin in a suit and tie at some big firm on Wall Street.
“Oh yes,” Vin said. “But I stood firm and did what was best for me, not her. Now you’ve got to do the same thing.”
Sami thought for a moment. “Okay, could you come over here with them, though? That way I can have an ally.”
“No way,” Vin said.
“But—”
“Look, Sami, you know if I thought you needed me I’d be there in a heartbeat. But you don’t need me for this. You have to do this one on your own.”
Sami spent the rest of the morning i
n the back office, where she was sketching, or wasting perfectly good sheets of paper, she thought as she surveyed the discarded pages on the floor around her.
Finally, her worst fears were realized. The door opened, and the bells above signaled the arrival of the Grangers from Elk Lake, Minnesota.
“I know who you are,” Lola greeted them, jumping up from behind the counter and extending her hand. “You’re Sami’s family. I’d have known you anywhere. You’re exactly as she described you.”
Mac ignored Lola’s hand and looked around at the more “private” merchandise that was displayed behind the counter. “Well, this isn’t exactly the way Sami described her workplace,” he said disdainfully.
“Oh, it was much worse than this before she started here,” Lola informed him. “Your daughter’s added a lot of class to this place.”
“Really?” he said. “Where?”
“Hi, everyone!” Sami shouted, running over to her family in an attempt to keep Lola from telling her father what she was so obviously thinking. “What a surprise.”
“Hi, Sami,” Celia greeted her. “We were kind of hoping you could get off a little early today.”
“Sami doesn’t need permission to take off,” Lola explained to Celia. “She’s a full partner, her own boss.”
For a moment, Sami thought Mac looked impressed. But then his glance turned to two women examining a display of edible underwear. The women could feel his stare beating down on them. They dropped the underwear and scurried out of the shop.
“I can give the designs you’ve already done to the seamstresses, Sami. Get them started. In the meantime, why don’t you get these guys out of here … I mean, get them a good lunch? How about taking them over to Tandoori Heaven?” Lola suggested quickly, trying to avoid losing any more sales that day.
“What’s that?” Celia asked.
“Indian food,” Lola replied. “Chicken and shrimp dipped in yogurt and then baked in a special oven. A little bit of heaven on earth, I swear.”